Is it possible to distinguish ambient noise and earthquakes?
Damages caused by earthquakes may be
considered as the result of the geological characteristics of the sites where
they occur. These characteristics are better studied analyzing directly the
ground motions due to the earthquakes. This type of studies, however, is limited
to the areas that present a high level of seismicity [Nakamura, 1989].
To get out of this limitation, systematic analyses of ambient noise were made,
which can be easily performed in areas where the seismicity is low or even
absent [Dikmen & Mirzaoglu, 2005].